21 things that became obsolete this decade
TRANSCRIPT
Remember that trusty stylus? The once-awesome Palm Pilot had no chance with the advent of the Blackberry, and then, of coursethe touch-screen smart-phone.
PDAs
Dial-up
Static... dial tone... repeat a
few times... ah, internet!Definitely won't miss
that process!
Getting film developed
Does anyone actually do this
anymore?
The massive popularity of Netflix and Video-On-Demand has made it virtually unnecessary to go to an actual store to
rent movies.
Movie Rental Stores
No more getting lost on those epic road trips... just
punch in your destination into
your GPS or smart-phone and you're
good to go.
Maps
The internet became the place to go to find a job or sell your old couch.
Newspaper classifieds
With wireless penetration it's no surprise that many
people are using their mobiles or internet
voice services as their primary way to
connect.
The Landline
In the same vein of cell phones, it no longer costs extra to make those cross-country calls. And Skype and various other free internet chat services make international calls totally free (at least for now).
Long-Distance Charges
Obviously. Even
homeless people
have cell phones
now.
Public pay phones
DVD players first outsold VCR's in 2002; by 2004, they were outselling them at 40 to 1. Combine that total shift to digital movie-watching with the development of DVR,
and you had the inevitable death of the poor VCR.VCR’s
With the advent of the e-fax, and considering how annoying regular faxing can be, we think it won't be long before everyone's taking a bat to their fax machines.
Fax machines
Our old mainstays of data have been fading fast over the last few years, replaced by -- what
else?-- the internet!
Phone books, dictionaries, encyclopedias
Want to find out the locations of the closest 50 Starbucks in a 4-block radius? Forget wasting time talking to an all-knowing automated voice, and thank your lucky
stars for Google maps.
Calling "411“
Poor CD's. But could anything really have
withstood the amazing convenience of digital
music and the worldwide adoption of the iPod? As album sales dropped by
another 13% this year, it's only a matter of time until
the CD becomes just a relic of bygone times.
CDs
This decade, we said hello to sleek external hard drives and tiny thumb
drives.
Backing up your data on floppies or CDs
Getting bills in the mail
Envelopes! How quaint! The ease and
speed of online bill-pay and banking will probably make
mailings obsolete soon.
Buttons
Bye, bye buttons -- the iPhone seems
to have sent us hurtling
towards a touch-screen world straight out of Minority
Report.
Social networks have practically
erased the possibility of ever losing touch with
anyone.
Losing touch
Boundaries also went out the window with
the huge popularity of Facebook and Twitter.
Boundaries
Probably the biggest casualty of the decade. With most communication now conducted online, magazines and newspapers crumbling, and e-readers increasing in popularity,
paper is now on serious life support.
Paper
Movie Rental StoresBonus: Record Stores
Records have long been obsolete, except as nostalgia. But the record store, as in a store that sells music,
has now been replaced by the internet and iTunes.